pinetrees, smokestacks, and holy water.

Finland is a country of approximately five million people. According to wikipedia, there are over two million saunas in Finland. This equates to about one sauna per household. The amount of sauna-ing that transpired during our stay in Finland left our skin feeling rejuvinated, to say the least.

During our time in Tampere, Finland, Koala and I were able to share our project with 6 different church groups, plus one night which combined a couple of young-adult small groups. Sometimes the times we shared were brief and summarized, but there were also many times where we were able to share on a much more in depth basis. Especially encouraging/mind-exercising were some of the conversations we had on the night with the small groups. Koala and I shared some of our experiences as we normally do, but the night turned into more of a multi-faceted conversation in which we discussed the potential of Christian involvement with matters relating to human trafficking, which naturally flowed into a time of prayer for the sea of needs that are present for these topics.

(koala, sharing at the Come Home group)

(for one exhibition, we had the help of a professional lighting engineer. his knowledge of kelvin variations and angles of illumination proved to be most useful. he also let us use some photos. keetos antti. photo: antti hiltunen)

(photo: antti hiltunen)

(photo: antti hiltunen)

(photo: antti hiltunen)

(photo: antti hiltunen)

Saturday the 7th, the first night we arrived in Finland, we were sharing with Vapis United, a youth group at the Free Church in Tampere. As I have done a few times before, I was sharing about one of our class’ experiences, telling the story of when we handed out flowers to some of the Prostitutes of Amsterdam’s red light district. As I spoke, I began to be re-impressed with the realization of how powerful such a small gesture of love was on that single rainy evening last spring. As I look at my daily life these days, I see how I often become forgetful of the power of the love of Christ that resides in my heart. I can so easily go about my days, forgetting how love of Christ that lives in my heart has the power to transform the world around me, including individual people and their relationships, in addition to larger, more complicated entities, i.e. communities and red light districts.


As we travel to different communities, churches, schools, and other groups, Koala and I continue to share our experiences that have been most relevant to these issues of human trafficking. There is always a bit of variation in how the stories are shared, but still, often it is hard to feel that we are sharing anything of significance, as we ourselves have heard and told our experiences far more than we can begin to recount. One evening at one of the youth meetings, with the Come Home group, also at the Free Church, one of the pastors we met (who was also our translator) proved to be a deep encouragement to us. His work consists largely of traveling to the public schools throughout the entire nation of Finland, teaching about Christianity as well as sharing about his own personal relationship with Jesus. We were encouraged by the ways that he continued to keep his walk with the Lord fresh even in the midst of consistent message giving. One of the verses he spoke struck me profoundly:

...The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.

Numbers 6: 24-26

And I’ve heard this over and over in church benedictions, and I always remember having liked it, but I guess I had forgotten about it. In it I saw though how even with heavy luggage, repetition, and weary feet, we can continue in what God has directed us to, even just because is face is dwelling on us, granting us the peace of his directed gaze.

(holuoksa sinappi? (btw, this spelling is probably wrong.))

(each thursday the church gives out free pea soup to citizens of tampere)

(i don't know if they had napkins)

(they told me how to say pigeon in finnish, but i've since forgotten)

(tampere, in its early days, was driven by industrialisation)

(pyyhajarvi means holy lake. we would later swim here.)

(there are no cars in finland.
the most common form of transportation is sled-dog mushing.)

(sauna: 125 degrees centigrade.
pyyhajarvi: .5 degrees centigrade.)

(seppo + hanna (harrakka) taipale)

(päivi + the k-bear)

It would be hard to mention our experience of Finland without mentioning our beloved hosts, Seppo and Paivi Taipale. They showed us much about what it means to follow Christ in the normal, day-to-day living. They were kind to introduce us to the Finnish way of life, which includes, but is not limited to:

sauna
winter fresh-water swimming
ice Skating
snowy sommersaults
floorball
makkara (Finnish Sausage)

(watch out, the yankee has a destructive slap-shot)

This is the paragraph where I was going to ask you to pray with us for a place to stay for our upcoming time in Copenhagen. A couple days ago, we hadn’t an idea where we would call home during upon our arrival in Denmark’s capital city. My eyeballs were tantalized this morning when I saw in an email that our contacts had found an apartment for us to stay in at a local church. So, tomorrow when we take the train into Copenhagen, we can rest easy knowing we have a place to lay our heads at night. Praise the Lord.

Secondly, we would value your prayers for open doors to share the project with groups in and near Copenhagen. We have a couple events planned for certain, namely a documentary night with a social awareness group on the 19th, and an exhibition in a café on Sunday the 22nd. Copenhagen is a big city, and we feel able and willing to share nearly anywhere, we just need God to direct us to the right places and people. Pray for encounters that are ordained and directed by the hands of the Lord.

Lastly, I also wanted to inform you that due to visa limitations and other circumstances, on the 27th of March, I will be leaving the soil of Europe to return to the blustery but beautiful state that is Washington. The entirety of plans are uncertain, but I do know that for now, God has placed it in my heart to share the project in Ellensburg, throughout Washington, and wherever else it would work out in the good ‘ol U.S. of A. I will do my utmost to keep you posted on the dates, locations and other details of such events.

(bye bye helsinki)